Dying to Tell You

The Sermon on the Cross: Seeking to Know Christ in His Crucifixion and the Gospel Contained in the Seven Sayings of Jesus from Calvary

Michael Hunter

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781638443469
• eBook ISBN: 9781638443476
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

Jesus tells us that if one desires to be his disciple, they must "deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mark 8: 34). But what does it mean to take up your cross, and how can we do this? The apostle Paul said that he "desired to know nothing...except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2: 2) and elsewhere even claimed to "have been crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2: 20). How can one join Paul and know Jesus in his Crucifixion?

The answer is to take Jesus at his word. From the cross, Jesus spoke seven times. These sayings summarize the gospel and explain how we can know him in his Crucifixion. On the cross, Jesus was literally Dying to Tell You how his death fulfilled God's eternal plan for our redemption.

Unlike other studies of the "last sayings" of Jesus from the cross, Dying to Tell You takes a new approach and views the sayings together as a whole, revealing how together they form the foundation to understanding the gospel of Jesus. Originally motivated to seek a resolution to the dilemma of which saying is the last (both Luke and John appear to report the last saying), Dying to Tell You establishes a new order for the sayings based on a detailed examination and integration of the four Crucifixion narratives contained in the Gospels. While each saying is individually examined, rather than handling them as isolated statements, Dying to Tell You demonstrates how these sayings comprise the final message of Jesus, his sermon on the cross.

Along the way, Dying to Tell You also provides assurance that the Bible can be trusted and is a historically accurate resource; demonstrates that the cross is the centerpiece of redemptive history; and illustrates how Jesus and the Crucifixion serve to fulfill the scriptures and provide for the salvation of mankind.

Dying to Tell You is nothing less than one disciple's spiritual awakening and quest to know "Jesus Christ and him crucified" through the sayings he made from the cross and gospel they proclaim.

Introduction

For I have decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

—1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

I am writing because I have run out of reasons not to. Don’t get me wrong. Those who know me would tell you how much the topic of this study has long been the focus of my Bible study and that I have never been shy about sharing it with others. I have taught it in Sunday school classes and even been asked to present it as a sermon series during the evening services where we worshiped. So they may be a little surprised to learn of my hesitation to actually get on with the process of putting the study down in written form. At its heart, this study is nothing less than the story of my own spiritual awakening and ceding to what I have come to believe is a call to share what God has and continues to teach me about who he is with others.

If I were to be completely honest, the reason I have delayed writing was simply fear. Not fear of sharing—as I mentioned, I have shared it over the years with others in various ways—but fear that in finally writing it down would somehow mean the study was finished. This study is always with me. Whenever the rush of my daily activities slows down and my mind settles, concepts from this study invade my thoughts and stir me to my core. Even now as I have begun the process of formally writing, God is still revealing new truths to me from his word. I pray the central truths from this study will continue to undergird my understanding of the gospel and guide my quest to know Jesus better through his sayings from the cross.

Starting Out with a Good Foundation

It might be a good idea if I were to explain a little about how and why these sayings from the cross have taken such a central role in my life by first providing some background concerning myself and the circumstances that led me to begin a study of the sayings.

When you speak with many believers, they seem to have dramatic stories of how they came to become a Christian. They will often tell you how their life (one often filled with difficulties and struggles) was changed by an encounter with the forgiveness of God. To be truthful, I’ve always been a little jealous of them because my story is very different. I grew up in a Christian home and was raised attending church. I have been a Christian as long as I can remember, placing my faith in Christ at a very early age. I grew up hearing that my parents took me to church the first Sunday after being born, and most of my earliest memories have to do with being in church or church-related functions. We were a very religious family; and there was never a question about what we would do on Sunday—we attended church, all services, including Sunday school and morning and evening services. We also went to the midweek and youth services and would even find a church service to attend when on vacation. And even though I attended public schools and played community sports (mostly baseball), church and the people there were the center of our social world. I think I could count the times I missed a church service, until I joined the Army, on both hands.

Being raised in a Christian home, attending church, and going to Sunday school, I learned the usual Bible stories and knew what I believed because I had been taught it from birth. I was content with simply going to church and listening to the sermons and attending Sunday school. The King James Version of the Bible we used in my church was difficult at times for me to understand, especially when I was young, with its archaic language and vocabulary. This limitation was compounded by the fact that I was not much of a reader when I was a child but would rather be outside playing sports. Therefore, for me it was easy not to read (much less study) the Bible on my own. After all, I didn’t need to; every Sunday, I would be back at church again, where I would learn more from the Bible. So when I was young, even up into early adulthood, my relationship with God and his Word was easy; I just went to church where I was told what the Bible says and what I needed to know.

My belief in God and trust in his Word had always remained important to me even if I didn’t have much of a personal devotional life. As I grew older and got married, we always remained faithful to attending church, even as the Army assigned us around the country and overseas as we moved from one post to another. My faith was essentially a continuation of when I was young, attending church with my Bible in hand, but I did not read it much outside of church. When I did read the Bible during the week, it was done dutifully rather than devotionally, according to one of those through-the-Bible-in-a-year plans. I viewed the Bible more as a byproduct of being a Christian rather than something foundational to my faith.

I was confident that I knew my Bible. After all, I had been raised in a Bible-believing church and had been a Christian my whole life; and that was enough—until it no longer was.

Where Does the Bible Say?

The first step that started me down the path to the sayings of Jesus from the cross came as a missed phone call. One day while I was out my sister-in-law, Tara, called and spoke to my wife, Kim. She asked if I would be willing to give her away in marriage, as she was estranged from her father. The problem from my perspective was that she was engaged to a Mormon. I knew from my own past experience with a high school sweetheart who was a Mormon that their beliefs were not compatible with Christianity, an understanding only obtained after a lot of prayer during youth camp in the mountains of northern Arizona during my senior year in high school and returning home to talk with her about my faith. I quickly discovered that Mormons didn’t believe the same about God and who Jesus is or even the Bible as Christians. While this was a hard lesson for me given the whole “young love thing,” it did prepare me to relate to Tara. I felt strongly that to participate in a wedding ceremony would be tantamount to condoning it and giving her over to a non-Christian belief system. This was something I believed after prayer that I could not or should do.

So with a little trepidation, I returned her call and told her that I couldn’t participate in the wedding. She didn’t get angry as anticipate but asked me why. I explained that Mormons didn’t believe the same gospel, as Christians, and that for her to marry into it would result in her moving away from the true faith. At the time, I did not know exactly how Mormons differed. I just knew what she was telling me about what they were teaching her was not what I had learned in Sunday school or church. I even shared with her my experience from high school, explaining that I understood how hard it was especially when you have feelings for the person. But in the end, I couldn’t participate in a service that would set her on a path against biblical Christianity. She asked me several questions that included “Where does the Bible say…?” So I was forced to provide her the biblical support for what I was telling her about Christianity.

She had a list of the things they were teaching her leading up to the wedding (apparently, one must convert to be married into a Mormon family), so we took them one by one. To my shame, I struggled to find various texts I could remember from Sunday school and a lifetime of growing up in the church but did not know where to find them within the Bible. But with the help for the concordance in the back of my Bible and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, I was able to provide her with some answers to each question. A couple of times when I couldn’t find the passage I was searching for in the concordance, in frustration and with her still on the phone, I turned and randomly opened my Bible directly to the desired passage, and my eyes were focused to the exact verse on the page. Even now as I recount this conversation with Tara, I am still awed to have witnessed (even participated in) how the Bible is able to address questions of fa...

Table of contents

• Introduction